[supermatt]

IMHO, this is NO different from google closing down any other product. If, however, this news came with a grant of all the patents into the public domain, then it would be another story.

Could a startup set up a commercial balloon based mesh network without running into patents now held by google? Probably not.

THIS is the problem with these "skunkworks" type projects from megacorps. They suck all the air out of the room and prevent others from innovating.

Loon didn't fail, Google/Alphabet just decided they were going to discontinue funding. Now they hold a pool of patents they don't intend to do anything with. Now they will point that funding elsewhere and do the same.

[gundmc]

> If, however, this news came with a grant of all the patents into the public domain, then it would be another story...THIS is the problem with these "skunkworks" type projects from megacorps. They suck all the air out of the room and prevent others from innovating.

> Loon didn't fail, Google/Alphabet just decided they were going to discontinue funding. Now they hold a pool of patents they don't intend to do anything with. Now they will point that funding elsewhere and do the same.

They did EXACTLY what you are asking for the last X project that was sunset.

From https://x.company/projects/makani/:

> In 2020 Makani’s journey as a company came to an end. To share the lessons and insights the Makani team gained from their 13 year journey developing an entirely new kind of wind energy technology, the team created The Energy Kite Collection, a portfolio of resources including a technical report, Makani’s entire avionics, flight controls and simulation code repositories, flight logs for every crosswind flight of the M600 prototype, technical videos, a new simulation tool called KiteFAST created with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and a non-assertion pledge for the free use of Makani’s worldwide patent portfolio.

[supermatt]

I wasn't aware of that - that is fantastic.

However, this is certainly not the norm. Lets see if it holds true for Loon.

[ithkuil]

Yeah. This is how prejudice works. It doesn't matter what you do, if you're X you'll be (pre)judged as an X and nothing short of an immaculate behaviour will prevent people from just pointing at some past mistakes or self-serving behaviours to undo all positive actions you may have done

[Dylan16807]

I can't believe you had the gall to post that after they said "I wasn't aware of that - that is fantastic."

Talk about bias...

[ithkuil]

Fwiw I didn't post it after I read that answer.

[timClicks]

Yes in principle, but probably not for this idea. If a startup was really wanted to take this on, they would be very well funded. At that point, they could easily license/buy any IP monopolies owned by Google.

[supermatt]

Well it doesn't need to be a global network of stratospheric balloons - i.e. there are related aspects that could be undertaken with much more limited funding on a local scale.

For example, if you wanted to use a laser link to communicate between two ground-tethered weather balloons, you would need to account for the movements of the balloons to correct the link alignment. Lo and behold, first patent on the list (https://loon.com/legal/patents/) is for that exact thing (https://patents.google.com/patent/US8634974B2/en).

What about control the descent of a balloon by letting out some of the gas? You know, like flight balloons use, but "with a computer". Yep, patent for that too.

LOADS of the patents are basically "mesh network but with ballons"

These are obvious things you would need to do, and yet they are patented.

In short, they took away the ability to do ANY balloon based communications - not just a stratospheric global mesh network of current maneuvering autonomous balloons.

Of course, this shit shouldnt be permitted. The patent system is broken, as we often discuss around here.

IMHO, if these megacorps had ANY honour, they would release all patents to public domain - with revocation clause from another entity if that entity creates a derivative patent without same license. THAT is how to foster innovation - everything else should be a trade secret.

[rasz]

>If, however, this news came with a grant of all the patents into the public domain

They dont own any patents, they stole the tech from a startup, got sued, lost (patents) and finally had to settle.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-lawsuit-that-could-pop-alpha...

https://www.law.com/therecorder/2019/07/29/google-settles-ip...

[supermatt]

They have about 100 listed here: https://loon.com/legal/patents/

[rasz]

Those are ancillary. This is what happened to the important ones https://9to5google.com/2017/07/10/project-loon-patents/